“The Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) welcomes the Report from the National Human Rights Consultation Committee,” said Dr. John Sweeney, who co-ordinates the Centre's research.

"That the overwhelming majority made strong calls for a clearer legal statement of every human's rights in this country is also an encouraging signal that people are concerned to protect the well-being and dignity of others."

"Agreeing on common moral principles that stand independently of all groups is the only defence ordinary people have against 'Might makes right'. Moral principles are too important to be left to the whim or personal judgment of a small number of people." Dr Sweeney said.

Phil Glendenning, the Director of the Edmund Rice Centre, called on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to take advantage of the closer collaboration with Indonesia to ensure that asylum seekers are properly processed to ascertain if they have the right to asylum.

"ERC has found clear cases in the past where people came to Australia asking for asylum and were not granted it, but were deported back to the very situations of danger that they fled," Mr Glendenning said.

 

Shifting the Focus: From People Smugglers to Protection

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

Article 14 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Australian government has recently stepped up its effort to form partnerships with regional neighbours to tackle people smuggling, which it identifies as the primary focus of its asylum seeker policy.

This focus detracts attention from the people most affected by this new strategy, those seeking asylum in Australia.

As refugee lawyer David Manne has said, “There’s a disproportionate emphasis on protection of our extraterritorial borders to the serious expense of protection of people [in Australia]”

The Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) today called for a definitive end to the sort of debate that treats asylum seekers as political footballs - willfully tossed around with the sole aim of gaining a team advantage in the game of politics.

This stand-off in Indonesia demeans Australia in the eyes of the world, and diminishes us as a people. It is ugly politics that under a discourse of 'deterrence' uses vulnerable people to send a message to others who simply are not listening,” said ERC Director, Phil Glendenning.

The current political debate is wrong because it demonises the vulnerable, it employs the ugly tactics of petty partisan race-politics. This is dog-whistle stuff which summons up the darkest fears that reside within Australians' hearts historically.” he said.

 Artwork for publication: ERC Director Phil Glendenning

I had no idea what to expect from my journey to Kiribati, but I went in with an open mind and was willing to accept and embrace whatever came along. What I wasn’t prepared for, was the enormity of the experience and the impact it would have on me. This was a life changing experience that will stay with me forever....

There is nothing new about torture. It has always occurred either directly or by proxy, but the unthinkable becomes possible during times of crisis or fear.

In 1975 the United Nations (UN) General Assembly unanimously approved the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment where member nations agreed to eliminate torture. It was agreed that exceptional events, situations, or factors would not provide an exception to the prohibition against torture.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 2.2, United Nations Convention Against Torture

According to Professor George Williams, the policies pursued by the Bush Administration, mean that, ‘We’re now in a position where the use of torture is more acceptable than it was before 9/11.’

The Bush Administration overrode morality and made methods of torture ‘common’. To give itself the ‘flexibility’ to use methods defined as torture it covertly redefined torture as ‘extreme acts’ which resulted in ‘death or organ failure’.

These 4 climate change songs were written by George Stuart. Easy to sing, they are moving, educational and a call to action. The last song has 2 sets of words, the second set was written specifically for the 2009 Pacific Calling Partnership's delegation that went to Kiribati. They are written to well known protestant hymn tunes but could be sung to other favourite tunes. The songs can be used by anyone, they only need to acknowledge George Stuart's name if printing these songs.

...Anna and I experienced ‘close encounters’ first hand with our home stay family, whose compound was located at the south east end of Tarawa. The compound houses anywhere up to 30-50 people at any one time. It had 2 non flushing toilets and 3 showers all supplied by a well with a hand pump. The kitchen amenities were outside and all cooking was done over a coconut fibre compact fire. We ate under a hut constructed of pandan branches and corrugated iron.... read more

Amanda Lloyd's reflections on being a part of the 2009 PCP delegation to Kiribati begin:
Immediately when arriving at Kingsford Smith airport I knew that the group of people I had only just met were both inspirational and motivational. You know sometimes you just look at people and you think, “Wow – I would really like to know their story!” that was what it was like for me with each one of the fourteen delegates heading to Kiribati on the immersion tour. Hearing their stories and getting to know them it was clear that this was going to be an amazing journey where personal and professional challenges were going to be met, and this was before we had left Australia. These wonderful people only make the story that follows possible… click for more

In October I was fortunate enough to have been chosen as a representative of the Catholic Education Office in Wollongong, to be part of a delegation from the Pacific Calling Partnership, to travel to Kiribati and witness first hand what affect climate change is having on the environment and its people.

Come along, share a meal and listen to the reflections of the delegation
that have recently returned from Kiribati.

Copenhagen: Delegation of Pacific Islanders and Australians depart for UN Summit

Representatives from the Pacific Island communities most threatened by rising sea levels, will travel to the Copenhagen UN summit this week, together with Australian human rights advocates, to ensure that the human face of climate change is not forgotten.

For too long the climate change discussion has been an elitist debate between scientists, politicians, economists and environmentalists,” explained Phil Glendenning, director of the Edmund Rice Centre, and a member of the Pacific Calling Partnership (PCP) delegation. “Our humanity is at stake and this elitism cannot be allowed to continue.”

Representatives from the Pacific Island communities most threatened by rising sea levels, are attending the Copenhagen UN summit, together with Australian human rights advocates, to ensure that the human face of climate change is not forgotten.

 

 

Representatives from the Pacific Island communities most threatened by rising sea levels, are attending the Copenhagen UN summit, together with Australian human rights advocates, to ensure that the human face of climate change is not forgotten.

"It is our own humanity that is demeaned, by our failure to respond to the humanity of our vulnerable neighbours.”

Copenhagen: Participation by Australian human rights centre at UN Summit

Edmund Rice Centre director, Phil Glendenning, today issued an urgent appeal from Copenhagen calling Australians to make known to the Government the need for urgent and drastic action on climate change.

"We can't let ourselves fall in the trap of self-interested and cynical hard-heartedness,” he said. “If we do so as a nation, then it is our own humanity that is demeaned by our failure to respond to the humanity of our vulnerable neighbours.”

Hopes & aspirations of individual members of delegation for their journey to Copenhagen and COP15

Geraldine Kearney:   “Relieved that the delegation is still going with HOPE – in the latest context of the Australian political scene – PCP must not lose HOPE .   We must further consolidate what PCP did at COP13 in Bali in 2007.  We must meet every morning & evening if possible and include prayer as part of the meeting.  We must support each other and each others growing. – Pacific Islanders and Australians partnering each other .  We must portray a visible presence of a prophetic message. Geraldine and Tangaroa  are the only two who are going this time who also went to Bali.  In Bali no one was the real leader – we were all in a whirlwind passion caught up in a common purpose.”

For the two weeks of the Copenhagen 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, the Pacific Calling Partnership’s delegation put the human face of climate change onto the international stage in the hope that the overwhelming international attention there will contribute to build up a groundswell of concern for the effects climate change is having on low lying Pacific Islands.

At the height of political dog-whistling in 2002 the Edmund Rice Centre led an important effort to bring clarity to the national debate through the publication of the accessible fact-sheet: Debunking the Myths on Asylum Seekers

It now appears to be necessary to revisit the topic to once again bring a factual spotlight to the debate for this coming election year!

Myth 1 : Australia is being inundated by people in boats.

Fact: This is false. 1 800 boat people have sought asylum in Australia in 2009. This number is tiny when compared to other countries. Even given an increase in 2009, the annual average number of boat arrivals to Australia is tiny in comparison to the 50,000 people that over-stay their visas each year, or when taking into account that on average 95% of asylum seekers actually arrive in Australia by plane.

We may be wired for war but are we wired for weighing the consequences? What happens when science fictions becomes battlefield reality?

I am deeply disturbed by the long-distance murder of poor and  defenceless people that passes for legitimate ‘war’ in our time. It is incredibly cowardly, and I marvel that more people don’t jump up and down in the streets, pointing this out. How much courage does it take to point and shoot a missile at a town you’ve never seen, filled with children whose voices you’ve never heard.

Alice Walker

There are philosophical and ethical questions when a soldier thousands of kilometres away can, as if playing a video game, sit in a control room before a computer and obliterate an Afghan or Pakistani village or Taliban hideout by remote control then sign off, go home for dinner with his family and play with his/her children. It is war by remote control. It is also ‘execution without trial’. The use of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) will not make the world safe and will lead us to lose trace of the morals of armed conflict?